NEW DELHI, November 22: Expectedly, Punjab and Sind Bank made the semi-final grade beating Karnataka XI 5-1 but not before gathering experience and resorting to some disciplined performance in the second half of the Nehru-ONGC Hockey tournament at the National Stadium here today.The fourth semi-final spot went to Army XI, who had some anxious moments playing against a determined Punjab State Electricity Board (Patiala). Luckily for the winners, two goals in a span of eight minuts in the second session saw them through.The game between PSB and Karnataka began on a slow note and picked up momentum midway through. But life was infused into the game when Karnataka surprised their rivals by a field goal in the 27th minute. John Verghese made no mistake with his shot to leave the PSB camp in disbelief.However, PSB did not have to wait for too long as they pulled up their socks and restored parity in the 33rd minute when Rajinder Singh converted a stroke. In fact, after this equaliser the teams contend to play for the breather.On resumption, the complexion of the game changed and PSB was a trasformed outfit attacking from the outset. They surged ahead in thed 45th minute when Parminder Singh converted a penalty corner, their sixth. Soon after on a counter attack Parminder added one more to the tally forcing the Karnataka outfit into some rough play.This resulted in another penalty stroke being awarded to PSB which Rajinder converted without any difficulty. To add insult to injury, Parminder struck his third goal in the 66th minute and it literally sealed the fate of Karnataka.Army XI took the lead in the 16th minute through Samson and within three minutes consolidated their position when K. Horo struck. But in the next minute Domnik pulled one back for PSEB off a penalty corner. Army playing, according to a plan, seemed to have their opponents on a leash and Horo emerged the hero once again by scoring another one just before the interval to put his side 3-1 up. Seven minutes into the second half, PSEB reduced the margin once again through Kanwalpreet Singh off a penalty corner and a defence lapse allowed PSEB strike through Hardial Singh to level the score 3-3 by the 44th minute.But A. Velwe added to Army's tally in the 45th minute to keep them in the game before D. Ravi made sure that Army coasted home with a cracking shot in the 53rd minute. The remaining minutes were efficiently played out by Army as they crowded the defence understandaly. This did not allow PSEB made any swift move into the rival territory.Crown for SAILFine knock by Vivek Razdan (41 not out) enabled Steel Authority of India won the Jet Ariways Redison Corporate six a side tournament trouncing TERI (Haryana) by 31 runs.Brief scores: SAIL: 85 for 4 in 5 overs (Vivek Razdan 41 not out, Ishwar 2 for 10) bt TERI: 54 for 4 in 5 overs (Ishwar 28, Vivek Razdan 2 for 12).Zonal hockey meetThe inter-zonal hockey tournaments, organised by the sports branch of Delhi Administration, will be held from December 5 at the Thyagraj Nagar Sports Complex.. Because of the National School Games, the meet was put off to December 5.
